This invention relates to the servicing of vending machines. More specifically, it relates to determining the inventory of products in a vending machine.
Vending machines have long been used to provide consumers with convenient access to consumer-packaged goods (CPG). Vending machines are typically owned or leased and serviced by a vending company, who typically manages and services a large number of machines in a geographic area. Determining what product are in a vending machine and changing the product mix is an important—and time consuming—part of managing and servicing vending machines. The arrangement of particular products in particular slots, or “coils” in a vending machine is called a planogram. A “driver” is typically responsible for stock replenishment and other service tasks. For these other service tasks the driver operates as a “field technician,” or another title. For convenience, we refer to all such in-field service performers as “drivers.”
Planograms for each machine are recorded, but are often in error for various reasons, such as a driver mis-recording a planogram or a driver re-ordering a planogram and not recording the change, or a driver loading different or incorrect products into a machine.
Although some vending machines are equipped with hardware and communications to record and transmit sales, such sales are based on coil number (slot location) and do not know what product is in what coil. That is, they are unaware of the actual planogram in the machine.
A weakness of the prior art—manual planogram recording and auditing—is slow, expensive and error-prone.